LiverKick - LiverKick

It's Showtime is headed back to the Canary Islands in Spain, returning to the site of their show in November in Tenerife. After the successful event in November, it was a no brainer to go back. It's Showtime will be co-promoting the event with the same partners as the last Tenerife event.

Headlining the card is a title fight at 61kg pitting champion Javier Hernandez against the challenger Masahiro Yamamoto. Hernandez won the title back in June last year when he defeated Karim Bennoui in Madrid. This will be his first defense of the title and Yamamoto will be a tough fight for the champion. Yamamoto became the number one contender for the title by defeating Kan Itabashi at the It's Showtime Japan Countdown 4 event in October. Yamamoto went on a tear at the It's Showtime Japan events, winner three fights under that banner last year. Both fighters have the styles to make for an action packed fight.

Right under the main event, two time K-1 MAX WGP winner Andy Souwer takes on the hometown fighter, Zeben Diaz. Diaz put on a good showing against Giorgio Petrosyan his last time out. Having hometown fighters like Diaz is a big plus, as they play a big part in the event being successful.

At 70kg, Andy Ristie fights Abraham Roqueni. Ristie made a name for himself with the win over Hinata a month ago and he'll look to boost his stock even more. Roqueni's coming out party was his win over Andy Souwer a year ago.

A couple of fights at 85kg are on the card, as Murthel Groenhart fights Erick Kouman and Andrew Tate fights Moises Ruibal. It's odd to see Groenhart fighting all the way up at 85kg when some would say he's even too small for 77kg. Andrew Tate is an American fighter based out of England who participated on the third season of Enfusion. His opponent Erick Kouman is a hometown fighter, originally from Cameroon who's faced the likes of Sem Braan. In another odd fight, Amir Zeyada is fighting Loren Javier Jorge all the way up at 95kg. Zeyada had just made his debut at 85kg last May and now he's fighting all the way up at 95kg against the hometown hero, Loren Javier Jorge.

It's Showtime today released on their website their planned event schedule for 2012. We had been given a bit of a schedule a while ago, but it wasn't the full one. The new schedule just released has added two more stops in Spain and Belgium each. Also, there's no Australia event.

We didn't expect It's Showtime to take such a long time off between events and we were right. It's Showtime will be holding an event on May 12 in Wevelgem, Belgium. BFN Group's website had listed the event, but now it's been made official by It's Showtime. With the huge event on June 30 in Brussels, don't expect this to be a big time card.

July 21st will see It's Showtime return to Tenerife, Spain after a successful first time out in November. The Spanish market has proved to be great both times that It's Showtime has visited so it was a no brainer to come back. Expect Zeben Diaz, Loren and the usual Tenerife-based fighters on the card.

As we already knew, It's Showtime goes to Yokohama, Japan on September 17. Then in October they'll head to Belgium once again. On November 10 they'll be in Sao Paolo, Brazil, which was signed by Simon Rutz last year and will be an annual event. Finally, they'll head back to Spain, either Barcelona or Madrid on December 1. [source]

Along with all the fights made official yesterday, such as Peter Aerts vs. Tyrone Spong in Aerts' last fight, Rustemi Kreshnik vs. Jerome Le Banner and Andy Souwer vs. Chris Ngimbi, some other great fights featuring big names have been added. Danyo Ilunga will defend his It's Showtime 95MAX World Title against Filip Verlinden. Daniel Ghita vs. Filip Verlinden was also made official, after Ghita had told us about the fight in our interview with him. Sergei Lascenko will make his first appearance for It's Showtime against a to be announced opponent. Andy Ristie returns to action against Samir Djabba.

Interestingly enough, It's Showtime has mixed some big matches into both the Part 1 and Part 2 portions of the card, much like the January 28 show. By doing this, they can show the event on TV in two parts, like how HDNet showed the Part 2 of the January 28 event live and showed the Part 1 a week later. Click "Read More" to see the full fight card.

September 17th is still quite a ways off, but for Japan the It's Showtime event that is headed their way is shaping up to be a big one. There will be six main card fights and it appears that two of them will be title fights against established It's Showtime champions. Nightmare of Battle breaks it down;

The legendary Masahiro Yamamoto has finally gotten back on track and is on a three-fight winning streak. After defeating Kan Itabashi at REBELS.9 last year he has received the right to challenge for the It’s Showtime 61kg world title at the event.

The other world title fight will be at 65kg. The best Korean K-1 fighter of all time, Chi Bin Lim, defeated Mosab Amrani last year to acquire the right to challenge for the title.

So as long as the champions are there to defend their titles, this means that Masahiro Yamamoto will challenge Javier Hernandez and that Chi Bin Lim will fight Orono Por Petchpoon.